


It's late for that.

by drarryangels



Category: The Scorpio Races - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: F/M, POV Multiple, Post-Canon, generally no plot, just sean and puck being sean and puck, written entirely off a vibe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 17:21:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29953350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drarryangels/pseuds/drarryangels
Summary: "It's late for that, Puck."I can just make out his face in the dim light. His eyes are wide with shock and his mouth hangs open in a half forgotten cry of pain. I chase after him. This is my fault. I shouldn't have come.Or: Sean and Puck are trying to catch a capall, and Puck is an unintentional distraction.
Relationships: Puck Connolly/Sean Kendrick
Kudos: 3





	It's late for that.

**Author's Note:**

> This was written entirely off of a feeling, but I like it. Working on new things, and all that good stuff. More HP stuff coming, but The Scorpio Races is possibly my favorite book, and I just felt compelled to write something for it. So. Onwards!

**Sean**

Puck Connolly is standing at the top of the cliffs with her arms folded across her chest and her hair whipping at the back of her neck. I do not look to her, nor think about her presence watching my back. 

The ocean sucks at my feet, whispering and calling and rushing. I am looking at the water and waiting. The sky is gray, but not stormy, and the sliver of the moon is just visible over the horizon in the early dawn. There are capaill out there. I would know it even if I hadn't seen the heads cresting the water, simply by the way foam tips over the tops of the waves in crashing hushes. I think of Puck watching me watch for the capaill from the cliffs, and then quickly try to push her out of my head again. Distraction is not a luxury currently at my disposable. 

A flashing hoof jumps above the water and disappears again, just on the periphery of my sight. I keep my head still and watch for it again. It won't be long. The capaill are restless tonight, as am I. The water demands it, swirling as it is. And the sky is begging, gray and misted and dark. It isn't storming, but it's brewing. And there, a flash of tail whipping out over the top of the wave. They are getting closer to the shore, and I wait. 

Wind whips through my hair and under my collar, stinging my cheeks and the back of my neck. The ocean washes over my red bare feet over and over, cold and unrelenting. I wait. I wait until my knees go stiff and I think Puck must have sat down to watch. 

I know, without hearing or knowing how, when a capall touches the sand. I turn my head slowly to stare in its face. It is already looking at me, long black head and tipped ears pricking towards me. I wish Corr were here, that I was on him racing instead of standing here looking at a different capall. I wish Puck Connolly hadn't followed me to the beach before the sun could think about coming up. 

The capall does not blink. It watches me, and I watch it. It steps forward, and its hoof falls with the crashing of a wave over my feet. I turn towards the capall and run my eyes over its coat. Black and wet and shining, strong legs, head high and proud. She is not Corr, but she is beautiful. 

I take a step towards her, and watch her reaction. I need to know if she is skittish, if she runs or bites, whether she will attack or dive back into the salt, how she moves, which way she skitters. She does not move at all. I take a few more careful steps towards her, but she is absolutely still. I tuck my hand into a pocket of my jacket and pull out a few light iron bars. I keep them close in my hand, and keep my hand close to my side as I move towards the capall. She does not move at all until I am standing less than an arms length away from her. 

And then she does move, leaping forward with her teeth bared. 

**Puck**

Sean doesn't flinch when the capall jumps at him, but I do. I choke down my breath and clamp my hand tight over my mouth to keep from screaming. If I were on the beach with Sean, or if there was anyone else here to see me, I wouldn't have moved. But as it is, I stay with my hand over my mouth and my jaw clenched tight. There is no one to see my fear but the clouds and the ocean, and they already know of it. It is not a fear of them or the building storm, or even the capaill uisce. It has been long enough since my race and Gabe's goodbye that the capaill don't scare me the way they used to. That is all due to Sean. He loves them, and so I learned to love them too. 

He is, unsurprisingly, what I am afraid for. 

I know he can handle himself. But it is too easy to imagine the capall faster, teeth around his neck, dragging him under the water the way my parents must have been dragged under years ago. So easy to imagine myself standing on the cliffs, too far away from him to be of any use. 

There is nothing to worry about. The capall has nothing on Sean Kendrick, and he is at her side and murmuring into her ear within minutes. His hand presses into the horse's side and I catch the dim flash of iron in between his fingers. His hand dips into his pocket and he pulls out a ribbon that he showed me last night, before we rose to come to the beach. It's twined with pebbles from the shore and bells from the mainland, and when Sean sets it on the capall's neck, it instantly slows the swaying of its head and nudges into Sean's side. 

I flinch again. I can't help it. I want to be down there with him, watching his back, even though I know he's done this far more times than I could count. I hate watching and not being able to be there with him. He wanted me up here on the cliffs instead of down on the beach, so I am here. Being on the cliffs is too close, and also not close enough. 

I may not be afraid of the capaill any longer, but I have never caught one, nor have I ever even witnessed one being caught. 

Sean's head tilts up in my direction briefly, his face barely a dark outline. I want to scream at him, force him to look at the capall in his hands and not at me, but I stay silent. 

He looks away again quickly and slips a braided halter and lead over the capall's head. He leads it up the beach and across pebbles until he reaches the joint where the cliffs meet the beach. I watch him without blinking as he brings the capall up the side of the cliff on a narrow path. The capall seems quiet, quieter than any water horse I have seen, following Sean and baring its teeth without menace. I relax my shoulders and assemble my expression into something calm and glaring while I wait for him to reach me. 

When Sean gets to the top, he looks at me with that particular expression of his where he doesn't smile, but the lines in his face soften, and I know he is happy. I can almost imagine what he is thinking, after all this time, after all the times he's whispered it himself into my ear on the back of a horse or capall, or in bed, or at Palsson's. It is easy to know him, easier now than it was in the beginning. He is so, so alive. 

He spits and presses a hand into the capall's shoulder when she sways too close to him. 

"She is beautiful," I say. Black as the water she rose out of, and a long face that could tear through flesh and bone. My mind drifts to the capall in the lean-to, two years ago, staring in at me and Finn and Dove. I shake my head. This is not the same capall, I can tell in the points of her ears. And it wouldn't matter if it was. The capaill uisce are different to me now. 

"Yes," Sean says, and spits into his hand again, rubbing it down her neck. "Still wet."

"Peg Gratton said it'd be a crescent moon tonight," I say, although the clouds are too heavy to tell now. 

"Not quite a new moon," Sean says. The capall opens her mouth to snap at Sean and he presses a bar of iron onto her cheek. She flicks away quickly. 

I fold my arms over my chest. "She seems almost tame."

Sean glances to me before staring at the capall. His eyebrows come together. "She does."

I narrow my eyes at the capall. "It's strange," I say sharply. I want Sean to throw her back to the waves, but I know he won't. There is something about this capall that makes me want to run. 

If I'm being honest, most of the capaill make me feel like running and throwing them back to the water. The fear is gone, and I respect them, but I don't frequently want them close to me, and it is hard to think of them being close to Sean, though I know he loves them more than anything. Corr is the exception, of course. It's been nearly two years since I raced with Dove in the Scorpio Races, and it's taken that long for Sean to make me fall in love with him. But he is the only one, and I love him mostly because of how he loves Sean. It is a thing I have in common with the red capall. 

"It is strange," Sean echoes. He pushes the capall's black face away from his chest again. "What do you think of her?"

"She is unsettling."

Sean nods. "I agree." He doesn't throw her over the cliff to allow her to return to the ocean. Instead, he pulls her closer and leads her back through the grasses in the direction of his stables and house. 

I fall into step beside him, my eyes trained on the capall, and slip my hand into his. He squeezes his fingers, and they are cold and damp against mine from the salt water. I tuck his hand briefly into my coat pocket to warm it a bit before letting it go so he can hold the capall with both hands. 

The sun starts to rise as we get closer to Sean's yard and house, and the dawning light breaks over us and the capall. The light makes her no less black; her coat absorbs all the light in towards her, sucking it away from the air around her and from Sean.

Sean looks over at me with dark eyes. He is just leaning in closer to me, to kiss me I think, when the capall lunges again. She is fast. Faster than Sean. I see her long head flashing forward for a split second before there is a terrible ripping sound and Sean falls away from my side. My hands scramble in the empty air and I turn blindly until my eyes finally catch on the capall dragging Sean into the dawn with its jaws clamped around his shoulder.

I don't have time to scream; I'm already running after them with my arms pumping and my hair streaming out behind me. My mouth is open around his name, but I can't waste a breath.

I can just make out his face in the dim light. His eyes are wide with shock and his mouth hangs open in a half forgotten cry of pain. I chase after him. This is my fault. I shouldn't have come.

Even dragging Sean backwards, the capall is moving too fast for me to catch up with.

I can't lose him, I can't.

**Sean**

I can hardly see through the haze of pain, but I can hear Puck’s footsteps, pounding hard against the soft ground.

I want to call out for her, yell until she catches up and hauls me away. That is the danger of her. I forget the rest of the world in her face.

I should be thinking about how to get my shoulder out of the capall’s mouth. It’s likely too late for that. I’ll be at the bottom of the ocean soon.

I kick my legs out wildly. I can’t be at the bottom of the sea if Puck is still up here on the island. 

“Sean!”

I blink wildly. I reach my free hand out to her, to her voice. I am immeasurably surprised when something warm and small seizes on my hand, gripping so tight I think it’ll rip my arm right away from the rest of me. I keep blinking until Puck comes into focus, being dragged along through the mud by her hand wrapped around mine. 

“Let go,” I gasp. “Let go!”

”No,” she growls, and holds on tighter. 

She’s going to drown with me if she doesn’t let go of me. She’s not letting go. 

“Let go of me,” I yell at her. 

Her eyebrows come down over her eyes and she glares up at me, her chin bouncing on the ground. “I won’t,” she says. 

But then she does let go. For a second I think that she listened to me, and that she’s leaving me to the capall and the ocean. I am almost glad for it as my hand flails through open air until I register the pulling around my waist. I shake my head to clear my vision. Puck is still holding onto me, her arms squeezed just above my belt. She’s still glaring at me, and I love her so much in this moment that I smile down at her, even through the ripping in my shoulder and the weight of her body pressing my back into jagged rocks. 

She squeezes harder and shouts to me, “Punch it!”

Punch the capall?

“In the nose,” she says. “Hit her in the nose.”

I lift my free arm. I know I just need to hit hard enough to shock the capall, to make it let go of my shoulder. I can’t bear to hit one of them. 

I look down to Puck, my arm still hanging in the air. She knows I can’t. 

She screams without words, loud and wild and startling. One of her hands around my waist finds its way under my shirt and pinches my skin hard. “It’s your life,” she yells. 

I know what she’s saying. It’s my life, but it’s also hers. That’s part of this, of us. What happens to her changes me, and what happens to me touches her. It is a beautiful and terrifying thing. 

I reach back and hit the capall in the nose as hard as I can. For me, for her. 

It lets go immediately, like it was just waiting for me to fight back. She disappears into the night before I hit the ground, and I don't catch a last glimpse of her dark wet back before she is gone. 

I fall back onto jagged rocks, Puck slumping on top of me. She lets out a puff of air with the impact, her body still sprawled across me and her arms around my waist. I drop my head back and stare at the empty sky tinging gray with the rising sun.

Puck sets her head down on my stomach. 

“I’m sorry,” she murmurs into my shirt. 

I lift my hands and set them gently on her back. I lie there still, staring up and breathing hard. 

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” I say. “It was my fault. I wasn’t watching closely enough.”

“I shouldn’t have come with you.”

Maybe she shouldn’t have. I had thought myself earlier that I wished she hadn’t come. But that was a lie. I always want her near.

Normally I wouldn’t tell her so, but I can feel heat pooling under my shoulder and my head aches, so this time I do. 

“I always want you close. I would have been unhappy if you hadn’t come.”

She pushes herself off of me and shakes her head, red hair wisping around her face. “You would have been unhappy because you would have been dead.” She pauses and shakes her head again, harder. “Never mind. You wouldn’t have been distracted if I stayed at the yard.”

I sit up and stare at her. “Puck.”

She looks up at the sound of her name. I don't say it enough. 

“Would you have been at ease with yourself if you stayed at the yard this morning?”

We both already know the answer, and I stand before she feels like she has to answer. She sighs as she picks herself up after me. 

“Let me see your shoulder.”

**Puck**

Sean’s jacket, shirt, and skin is torn open, but there’s no broken bones or dislocations. I don't think the capall really wanted to hurt him. If she did, she would have. 

Sean holds his arm close to his chest and I keep my hand on his back just to feel his breathing. We walk that way back to the yard, and I ignore the drips of blood running over the rocks from the beach, already half dried. 

“Thank you,” Sean says. 

Our feet crunch over gravel. “For what?” I ask.

“For saving me.”

I roll my eyes. Sean Kendrick never needs saving. 

“Sean,” I say.

He looks at me, dark eyes and heavy eyebrows and cheekbones that could cut through horse hair. “Don't.”

“What?”

He shakes his head and looks at me. “Don't say whatever you’re going to say.” He stops walking, and I turn towards him. “Thank you.”

I move to him and lean in close to his weight, carefully so as not to jostle his shoulder. He is tall and cold where the wind has whipped at his clothing, and I am so glad he is alive. 

Sometimes it’s easy to forget the danger of Thisby in the way I love it. Not forget, but let it drift away. I get caught up in hooves pounding over grass and rock, water raging against the cliffs, the tinkle of the door into Palsson's, Sean’s hair at the kitchen table. I trust Sean to be safe with the capall, and I trust myself to be safe in the yard. The blood and murder, even that of my parents’, become distant… storylike. 

“I love you,” I tell him.

His shoulder will be okay. We’ll get it cleaned and stitched up, and he won’t wait long enough for it to heal, but he’ll be okay. I’ll nag him about it in the mornings, riding down to town in an old car Finn bought off a mainlander, my hair whipping into his face. 

He pulls me close by the waist with his good arm. “Puck,” he says, soft, almost lost to the gray clouds above us. 

He kisses me, warm and free. I kiss him back and hold onto him with both hands. 

I am so, so alive. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!! Much, much love from me to you <3


End file.
